The use of chip devices is well established in the field of gas turbine engines where chip devices are used to obtain an indication of a presence of metallic chips in the oil of the gas turbine engine, which, in turn, can be associated to wear of engine components. More specifically, the warning obtained from chip devices can be used in triggering a preventive maintenance of the engine.
Although known chip devices were satisfactory to a certain degree, they also suffered from some limitations. More specifically, the magnet is magnetized during one of the final steps of the fabrication process, after integration into the housing. The additional magnetization step is undesirable from a manufacturing standpoint as it adds costs, and the magnet of known chip devices was subject to demagnetization upon exposure to extraneous magnetic fields, shock, vibration or the like. There thus remained room for improvement in addressing the aforementioned limitations.